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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Has Facebook Killed Blogging?

Many bloggers have become addicted to Facebook these days. The site offers a visible network of friends, "walls" to post on, free gifts and drinks members can send each other, and even games such as Scrabble and Sudoku to play with your friends. It's quickly becoming one of the most popular sites on the Internet, with tons (that's my non-technical term meaning I'm too lazy to find out the actual number) of people signing up every day. Members can re-connect with old friends, forgotten classmates, co-workers and those friends that they actually see every day. It's the best.

However, since it has become so popular, several bloggers have expressed a growing lack of enthusiasm for their blogs. Could this be due to Facebook? Could wall postings have taken the place of blog postings? Have Facebook groups substituted for group blogs? And has the fact that we can now interact one-on-one, albeit still anonymously if desired, taken away the desire to write thoughtful posts on the topics of the day? Are there other contributing factors?

What do you think?

22 comments:

  1. Yes and no.

    What Facebook has done in my book has taken a lot of the 'conversation' - particularly the lighter, more friend/friendly-oriented stuff - off of blogs and onto Facebook. The heavier stuff, the real discussions, the communal issues, etc., are still generally on blogs - or were private to begin with.

    Also, Facebook has been great for networking with the friends (real or semi-real) that people have met through blogs... but unlike a blog, doesn't really let you make new ones too easily, under your terms, etc.

    So while it may have given blogging a hit, in the long run, it's not killing it. It's just taking away certain parts to an extent.

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  2. I'm staying clear of Facebook, but I find myself strangely fascinated by Linked-In.

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  3. i think along the lines of comment number one

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  4. This may be true only if you are under 30. Us 30+ year olds remember the old days of the Internet (circa 1995) when our needs were well served by Geocities (with some guestbook) and IRC chatting.
    Social networking via YouTube and Facebook? Meh.
    I even remember the good old days when BBSing was the thing to do.

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  5. avrom

    you want the good ol days, check out my post here:

    http://serandez.blogspot.com/2006/11/lost-art-of-pager-texting.html

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  6. I guess it's just another progression in the development of the internet. In terms of technology, it evolves fairly quickly but the internet is still a fairly 'new' phenomenon. So blogging has changed as part of that, as everything will with the emergence of new ways to network and communicate. Maybe some of us just need a break from blogging...

    Avrom: I'm under 30 and I remember the days of IRC and my old geocities homepage well! Wasn't really so long ago.

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  7. I don't see Facebook and blogging as being all that connected - maybe I just don't have enough bloggers as Facebook friends. Mostly people I went to school or camp with years ago and haven't spoken to in a long time.

    Linked-In seems weird to me. What's its story?

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  8. Lessee, the first video on MTV was Video Killed the Radio star. Hmm. Imagine going to YouTube for a video of Facebook killed the Blogging star. Just a thought.

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  9. In the past year, my facebook and blogging online time has increased. It's how I keep tabs with all my friends anymore, basically. I don't even email much anymore. I write messages via facebook so it will notify their cellphone. If I want to do a get-together, I make an "event", etc. Also, you can create a feed of your blog into facebook.

    Lower your shields. Prepare to be assimilated.

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  10. For those who ever doubted the legitimacy of Ez's yeshiva backround, I present exhibit:

    "Yes and no."

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  11. Come on Sarah, fess up - we know you're not 46, but you are 45... ;)

    What can I say? Facebook has stolen my heart from blogging. Who has the time or energy to blog when they are so busy updating their status and playing Scrabulous?

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  12. Sarah,

    You are right, it was not THAT long ago, though for people like Ezzie, he had yet to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah when I started with web pages. (I also dimly remember using Gopher briefly.)

    As for IRC, I even know someone who met their wife on IRC.

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  13. Linked in seems more business oriented and at first I thought it was more of a spam generator, but more and more of my friends are joining it.

    I've "reconnected" with a bunch of old HS buddies through it, but most of them claim they don't remember me.

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  14. Pros & Cons of Facebook

    Pros:
    1) Great for social networking.
    2) Seeing what girls your friends know.
    3) Great for wasting time.

    Cons:
    1) No in-depth content.
    2) Closed interface
    3) Annoying interface
    4) Waste of time.

    What will fix facebook?
    1) Opening up the API and removing all the coding restrictions
    2) Embedding external blogs (besides Sampa).

    As for LinkedIn.
    Pros
    1) A great place to update your resume.

    Cons
    1) Too money-hungry (you can't attempt to meet the people you really want to without paying then money or finding someone to pimp for you).

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  15. I barely have time to blog now and then; who has time for Facebook? Friends I can phone or email. Just a question: couldn't Facebooking be seen as distantly akin to lushon ha ra? I mean, the focus on people and not issues??

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  16. I don't see how Facebook would be lashon hara. If anything, it's more akin to Shema to me. Networking, reaching out, and bringing people closer to a better understanding and unity. It helps realize a global consciousness.

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  17. Having just discovered blogging and facebook this week I'm in no position to comment (I spent a life time avoiding them).

    For the past few years I've watched various social networking sites come and go (Faceparty, Hi5, Friendster, Myspace), the pattern seems to be as one is hyped a new one emerges... But these networking sites are a seperate medium to blogging.

    They killed off the chatroom, the newsgroup, the messageboard... But many seem to incroporate the Blog (Myspace, Livejournal, etc. Even Facebook has an RSS feed). And this incorporation seems to be the next trend - I doubt the blog will die, it will simply be inccorporated into peoples online profiles.

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  18. LinkedIn is more interesting to me than Facebook.

    In fact I find Facebook to be kind of dull, but maybe that is because I am not that involved in it.

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